A Place between Reds and Blues: My Birthday Chronicle

Dedicating this to all my dear friends.

My birthday chronicle continues as I come back to KL. Thanks to my lovely bunches of friends.

Visitors from Faraway

I always know that I’ve got wonderful ‘family’ and ‘neighbours’ from Camp Cameron 2007. It has been almost a year and a half and yet they failed to forget this friend and her birthday. All the way from UPM they’ve come few days before my birthday. Ben and I have a common friend who called him along to be our official photographer :) Went to Murni for a meal, then proceed to my college to hangout, when they pour out a whole bag of chocolates from Langkawi :) Luke brought this bible card game in which we had to try to arrange the cards (they each represent one book of the bible) according to the correct sequence. Such a ‘holy’ card game :P Ern Seang was busy peeping into his bible. Only Ben and Luke confidently know it. The rest of us just go by luck. Nevertheless, it was fun and it really helped us to memorize the bible book sequence. The lesson learnt is that we ought to read our bible more :P

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My Birthday Getaway
It was my last day before stepping in to 'adulthood', so i decided to take a trip out alone to find my ‘oasis’ and spent sometime alone with God. Have thought about it for since long time ago, which is why I was determined to get my new camera the day before this. Coincidently Ben suggested a whacky idea of one day-camera exchanging. So I shot with his DSLR instead :P Thanks Ben for trusting me :) God gave extra than what i asked for.

Met my coursemate on the way out to LRT station, who offered me a ride. That was like the first best thing that happened to me in the journey. God is good! Took the LRT to Pasar Seni, visited Central Market, a place that I’ve been curious about.

Took Jalan Hang Kasturi (I think) down to the historical Dataran Merdeka. Along the way I saw this foreigner couples who also carried an SLR and looking so pro and cool. It occurred to me the people might think the same on me. Lol. While the truth is that I’m nearly a camera fool :P

These buildings have so much aesthetic value that I can’t get my eyes away from them :)

Just as I was thinking to myself that I had quite enough of the buildings and should look for some crowds, this huge bus stop by and there came down a big bunch of tourists. They were all so excited about the destination and so hyped up about taking pictures. That just made my day. Sometimes, we had taken what we had for granted that we do not learn to appreciate it.

And I entertain myself by taking pictures of these excited tourists taking pictures. God listens to prayer!

Was trying to imitate the classic postcard picture of the Sultan Abdul Samad building. Apparently it wasn’t very successful :P

The sun was passionately bright, making the sky so dramatic, and making me feeling so loved. :)

The photographer won’t ‘rest in peace’ without getting her face into the picture :)

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Burfday Blast!
Later at night, I was at a birthday eve blast with my beloved PKV bros and sis. There were 23 of us in total! Ben had warned me that I would be seeing a interesting combination of people, and I was very surprised (and happy!) to see some faces such as long-time-no-see seniors Kok How and Joy, people I haven’t been closely keeping in touch like Jonathan and Dennis, and fresh juniors like Hyma, Melanie, Jason, Lydia and Sue May.

Got a beautiful sunflower as present. Love it to bits! Thanks babe!

First came the cake and the picture taking session.

Then comes the beer! They were making me drink! I almost fainted on the spot. What a thing to do to a birthday girl who just turned 21!

My birthday prayer: that they will change their mind. It didn’t come true XD

So I gobbled down the whole bottle and turn into Rudolph reindeer No. 2 later. First time ever in my life I do such a crazy and wild thing. Cheers to the microbiologist who fermented it.

And yup, my Hannah darling fed my face with cake!

After the dinner some of them stayed on, blind folded me and make me walk around SS2, finally led me to the fish spa foot massage shop. But it was quite a disappointment when we were told that I can't do it because I recently got a wound on my ankle :( Nevertheless, I really enjoyed the night and truly appreciate all of you, especially those that had put so much effort in planning.

“If we hadn’t met, my life wouldn’t be what it is today…”

So is mine :)

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Sermon on the birthday Sunday.

The worship leader recited this:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: ‘For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:35-39)

And sang this (over and over again):

When the ocean rise
And thunder roars
I will soar with You
Above the storm
Father You are King over the flood
I will be still
Know You are God

The speaker speaks on ‘Rejoice in tribulations’.

And tell story about how an eagle was killed by his prey (gruesome!) because he refuse to let it go.

A reminder to the birthday girl :)

Then I asked my pastor to pray over me a pastoral blessing. She must have thought that I was responding to the altar call to receive Christ. I wonder how many people would actually do likewise on their birthdays :P but oh well, Jacob fought for his blessing… keke.

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